Review summary

Good points

• Features several filtering options that make it easy to find specific files

• Can recover lost contents from formatted and corrupted drives

• Supports nearly every version of Windows

• GetData offers plenty of help, even video tutorials

Bad points

• Interface looks dated

Our verdict

Recover My Files is a great system utility that features comprehensive data-recovery capabilities. Users who have accidentally deleted important files will surely be pleased with this software's ability to restore most of these files quickly and effectively.

Full review

GetData is a software company that specializes in various forms of data recovery. Recover My Files is one of their most popular offerings. According to GetData, this product is capable of locating and recovering nearly all file types. To test its effectiveness, we installed Recover My Files on one of our most-used computers and attempted to recover several files.

Setup

Installing Recover My Files is a quick and painless process, even on older versions of Windows. On our test system, which runs a 32-bit version of Windows 7, Recover My Files installed in less than a minute without any issues. It does not automatically start and scan for recoverable files following the installation. However, it is configured to automatically display various data-recovery tips once opened. These tips contain plenty of useful information, but users can opt to disable them at any time.

Data Recovery

Following setup, the first menu presents users with two options. If users select the “Recover Files” option they will be guided through a process designed to recover individual files, such as documents that were accidentally deleted. If users select the “Recover Drive” option, then they will be guided through a process designed to recover the contents of an entire drive; it was designed for users who accidentally formatted drives or reinstalled Windows and lost all of their files. Both of these processes support various types of hard drives and over 200 types of files. Also, Recover My Files works flawlessly with several different file systems, including FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, and NTFS5.

Effectiveness

Recover My Files is an extremely effective data-recovery tool. Not only is it capable of digging through thousands of deleted files, it is capable of recovering them. While searches can take some time to complete, the results are well worth the wait. In fact, while attempting to recover files from our test system, Recover My Files was able to locate and recover files that remained on our hard drive from a previous Windows installation. Also, while attempting to recover recently deleted files, Recover My Files never had any issues completely restoring them.

Features

Burn data to disks – For users who have little free space, this feature is perfect; it gives users the option to burn recovered files to CDs or DVDs.

Batch file recovery – This feature allows users to recover multiple files at once; it can save a considerable amount of time when a large number of files must be recovered.

File previews – With the file-preview function, users are able to see portions of recoverable files. For photos, which often have non-descriptive names, this feature is quite useful.

Updates – GetData provides updates for Recover My Files often, and this software's main menu features a button that can be used for single-click updates.

Ease of use

For such an effective data-recovery application, Recover My Files is certainly easy to use. When searching for files, this software automates everything. Once recoverable files are located, users are presented with a list that is easy to sort through. From that list, users simply select the files that they want to recover. Then, they select the recovery location for these files and wait as the software retrieves them. Overall, from start to finish, the file-recovery process is a breeze with Recover My Files.

Help & support

GetData provides Recover My Files customers with plenty of resources and some decent support. The support center for Recover My Files is located on the GetData website; it features a wealth of program-specific information as well as several video tutorials. Users who need extra help can submit a support ticket to GetData's support staff; they respond to support inquiries via e-mail and telephone.

Overall

If you need to recover deleted files, Recover My Files can help. This easy-to-use utility is capable of locating and recovering more than 200 types of files. Recover My Files presents all recoverable files in an organized fashion, and most users should have no problem locating specific files. For users who need help, however, GetData offers plenty of helpful information, even video tutorials. Recover My Files is great for all of the aforementioned reasons, but it is not perfect. While this software's interface is functional, it looks extremely dated. If GetData improves Recover My File's interface in the next release, it could easily be our top data-recovery pick.

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